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Archie Griffin had an enviable problem. Almost everywhere he went, people wanted to see his two
Heisman trophies.

The former Ohio State University running back needed to find a way to transport the awards
safely, and he turned to a Columbus business: Cabbage Cases.

At that time — the early 1990s — the company produced cases mostly for musical instruments and
audiovisual equipment. It leapt at the chance to help Griffin.

Word got around, and the company has now sold more than 50 of the cases for other Heisman
winners, including Tony Dorsett, Marcus Allen and Robert Griffin III.

Cabbage Cases has many versions of this story: The small company has touched a series of
high-profile people and events.

When you see a Grammy Award being presented, the trophy was delivered to the theater in a
Cabbage case. In the NFL, when the referee goes under the hood to see an instant replay, the outer
shell of the equipment is a Cabbage case. The people who dress up as Brutus Buckeye, the OSU
mascot, store the costume in a Cabbage case.

Steve Burkey started the company in his OSU campus-area garage in 1974. He lived in a house full
of friends, many of whom were musicians.

“We were in a garage at the same time as Apple,” he said. “They just grew faster than us.”

He played piano and organ in several area bands, including one that has a strong local
following, the Dave Workman Blues Band with Willie Pooch. And yet, he wanted to find a steady gig
outside music.

His initial plan was to build guitar amplifiers and speakers. He found that customers were much
more interested in having him build heavy-duty cases for musical instruments.

When he went to register for a business license, his mind went blank when he had to come up with
a name. The first thing that came to mind was “Cabbage Enterprises,” named after one of his defunct
bands, Cabbage.

At first, the workforce consisted of Burkey and the other co-founder, Rick Smith. Smith moved
out of the region in 1976.

The company gradually added employees by hiring friends or friends of friends. Early photos look
like an Allman Brothers Band tour, with almost everyone sporting beards and long hair.

Today, the company has 26 workers — but not as much hair.

Mark Gardner was one of those employees. He is now vice president, directly overseeing the
Steelwood Road factory that has been the company’s home for about 20 years.

“You want (the cases) to be lightweight and strong, but it’s hard to do both at the same time,”
Gardner said.

The materials include plywood, metal, foam rubber and ultrastrong plastic.

Employees have flexible hours. The early birds get there by 6 a.m., while some people don’t
arrive until four hours later. Most of the employees work about 45 hours per week.

In the 1990s, Burkey hired two Vietnamese refugees. He found the two men ranked among his best
workers, and he has hired many of their friends and family members.

The company’s catalog has a few standard items, but most of its work is custom-made and spread
among many customer bases. Its largest product category is cases for large audiovisual equipment,
about 20 percent of sales. Among the other large segments are cases for costumes and for
entertainment productions, each about 15 percent of sales.

Burkey estimates that about 20 companies in the United States make similar types of cases.
Cabbage Cases is close to the middle in terms of size, he said.

One of the most-notable custom jobs was for Archie Griffin, who is now president of the OSU
Alumni Association. He had seen the cases that football videographers use, and he thought they
would be good for when he took one of his two Heisman trophies to speaking engagements.

“You don’t just walk around carrying it,” he said, speaking from his office at OSU. “You need
something to protect it.”

He took one of the trophies to Cabbage Cases to get it measured. The company built him a sturdy
case, and he picked it up a week later.

But there was a problem. The case was too large to fit in the trunk of Griffin’s Oldsmobile. The
company made him another, smaller case.

This unneeded case turned out to be an opportunity in disguise. Cabbage Cases mailed the larger
case to the organization that presented the Heisman, the Downtown Athletic Club in New York, saying
it was a gift.

The club used the case, and other Heisman winners saw it and wanted one.

Today, Griffin’s trophies are on long-term loan to the Ohio Union and the Buckeye Hall of Fame
Grill, so he doesn’t need to lug them around.

Cabbage Cases’ offices do not sport a Heisman Trophy, but they do have a Grammy. The company
supplied cases to hold the awards given out each year by the National Academy of Recording Arts and
Sciences.

The manufacturer that makes the Grammy trophy bought the cases and gave Cabbage Cases a replica
of a trophy.

Perhaps the most-visible use of the cases is by NFL officials.

The company made the outer shell of the instant-replay booths that referees use on the sidelines
to review plays. In that instance, the company provided the materials to another case-maker, so the
Cabbage Cases name is not on the product.

The enterprise that began in the long-hair days of the 1970s is evolving, and Burkey, 66, is
gradually handing off responsibility to Gardner.

“I would like to transition out and have it survive me,” Burkey said.

He expects demand to increase for his products, as more functions are handled by portable
electronics.

But he knows from experience that the business will evolve in ways that he cannot predict, and
that the market segments of the future might be completely new.